Issa needs to decry vitriol, push for immigration reform

At the beginning of the 113th Congress hopes for comprehensive immigration reform were high. After the defeat of Mitt Romney and the abusive anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republican primaries, GOP leadership seemed to have finally realized that immigrants and their families are a powerful force in electoral politics that can no longer be ignored or dismissed.

In February of this year, Rep. Darrell Issa, a longtime advocate of increasing high-skilled immigration, took the initiative to come out in favor of a road map to citizenship for the approximately 11 million workers in the United States without authorization. It was an inspiring announcement that demonstrated that business and labor were coming together to push for immigration reform that would benefit all levels of society.

Since then, however, Congressman Issa has been painfully silent.

Here we are eight months later. Immigration reform passed the Senate in an excruciating compromise that will militarize our border, but it passed. Now in the House of Representatives even a bill that raises border security to the level where there is an agent every 1,000 feet won’t suffice to win over opponents. With this opposition the anti-immigrant rhetoric has returned. Recently, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), when speaking about the DREAM Act that would create a road map to citizenship for immigrants brought to the United States as young children, stated “For everyone who’s a valedictorian there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

This is not some fringe commentator trying to boost ratings, or even a fringe congressman. In fact, the scariest thing about Steve King’s remarks is that they were said by a man as pivotal as he. Steve King sits on the Immigration and Border Security subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, the very committee tasked with working on a solution for immigration reform. For those of you who think that King was using poetic license, he later defended his comments, saying, “What I spoke was objective truth, informed objective truth ... and if that offends people, then we cannot arrive at rational conclusions for public policy.”

Congressman Issa and King sit together on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee charged with reforming our nation’s immigration laws. Congressman Issa has taken the lead on advocating for immigration reform for high-skilled workers and that is commendable. His silence regarding comprehensive immigration reform, however is saddening and unacceptable for an elected official from a border community. Comprehensive immigration reform is too important an issue for someone as well-positioned as Issa to be silent. Republican leaders, including Speaker Boehner, have condemned King’s statements and I now call on Issa to publicly condemn King’s statements, call for his removal from the subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, and renew his endorsement for a road map to citizenship.